Contact centre software vendor Genesys is generally associated with enterprise-scale environments. For example, one of its high-profile local customers is the Australian Tax Office.

But the company understands that businesses of all sizes want to differentiate themselves though superior customer service, ANZ channel director Vaughan Webster told iTWire; hence the introduction of Genesys Business Edition.

Genesys channel partner Generation-e's managing director Biagio La Rosa explained that unlike the enterprise version — where everything has to be built from scratch — Genesys Business Edition comes as a preconfigured appliance with a set of templates for quick deployment.

"It's resonating with the marketplace" and "the demand has been fantastic."

So far, most deployments for Generation-e clients have been on-premises, even though Genesys Business Edition is also available from the cloud.

The current expectation is that telephony-related systems are expected to run on-site, he said, but "that will change with the launch of Skype for Business Online." (Genesys provides native integration with Skype for Business.)

According to Webster, the market segments showing interest in the Business Edition match those for the full Customer Experience Platform: financial services, insurance, telcos, retail, travel, utilities and government departments.

Genesys Business Edition suits midmarket businesses with between 50 and 200 contact centre agents, said La Rosa. They are being squeezed from below by start-ups and disrupters, and from above by enterprise-scale competitors. To compete by improving their service, these businesses need advanced features previously found only in enterprise systems, but with much easier deployment, which is exactly what the Business Edition provides.

In particular, they need to integrate voice and other channels, design routing rules based on recent communications, automatically present agents with relevant information based on the caller's history, and provide agents with the ability to bring other employees with relevant expertise into a conversation.

Arranging things so the first person the customer talks to is able to settle the matter without having to transfer the call is associated with higher net promoter scores, La Rosa said.